restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

                

Nothing But A Heresy

 David Alan Black

Today I received an email that stated (in part):

The rules have changed in the American Government when both major parties support and advocate sin against God. Up till August 15, 2004, an American could actually and ethically say by voting for the Republicans they were voting in hopes of moral change. The comments of the leaders of the Republican Party are crystal clear and stated in the open for all to hear. The Republican Party stands for and openly advocates sin against God.  To vote and support such political parties is to support and advocate sin. It cannot be any other way.

This author is absolutely correct. The church must dare to call accommodation a sin. This means that the GOP platform must be taken from its political framework and placed in a theological one. Dealing with statism means dealing with the very heart of the Gospel: the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

It is for this reason I reject any ideology that would legitimate forms of statism and any doctrine that is unwilling to resist such an ideology in the name of the Gospel. I believe that, in obedience to Christ, our only Head, Christians are called upon to confess and to do this, even though authorities and laws may discourage or even forbid them, and even though suffering and punishment be the consequence.

My appeal is for the church to awaken from her long slumber and in deep humility bow before the Lord with our own guilt and complicity and confess that we have forsaken the truth. I believe that pastors and other church leaders have an obligation to call on churches to hear and heed the words of 2 Chronicles 7:13 and 14. The Lord says:

Whenever I hold back the rain or send locusts to eat up the crops or send an epidemic upon my people, if they pray to me and repent and turn away from the evil they have been doing, then I will hear them from heaven, forgive their sins, and make their land prosperous again.

With all the weight and channels at her disposal the Bride of Christ must zealously lead Christians – from George W. Bush to the least among us – to the point where they will acknowledge their guilt in the establishment of the pseudo-religious ideology of statism that has resulted in numerous acts of sorrow and suffering for countless people in the world.

Statism is not simply a political theory but a sinful contradiction of the Gospel that cannot be justified on biblical or theological grounds and is, therefore, an ideology that the church needs to reject as a heresy. The love of one’s country is not sinful, but when political allegiances become absolutized, as they currently are in the GOP, we are dealing with a love that is sinful.

Let us remember the Republican Party in our prayers, and may God grant us all a spirit of repentance.

September 4, 2004

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. His latest book is Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon.

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